What I Ate Wednesday: Donuts and Denny’s and MOAR

It’s kind of sad now that we’re past the 12 Days of Christmas. I had to un-decorate my tree and start to take down our decorations (and some that I left on the mantle, my cat took down for me and destroyed in the process!). Yet Theophany comes with vegan donuts, and I still have some other holiday treats. Let’s take a look.

I mentioned this last year, in our parish we’ve brought back the tradition of making zalabia for Theophany. It’s just fried dough tossed in a simple syrup. You can use plain syrup, or flavor it with a little rose water or orange blossom. Some people use powdered sugar instead of syrup, or cinnamon and sugar. Do it however you like, it’s almost impossible to go wrong with fried dough!

It’s hard to believe it’s still good, but I found a container of my grandmother’s BBQ beans in the fridge leftover from Christmas. I sauteed a can of jackfruit with garlic and onions, seasoned it with salt and pepper, and added it to the beans to make a kind of meaty chili (the beans weren’t the sweet kind). It worked really well, and it was great in sandwiches.

We have a discount grocery store nearby, and I found Van’s Gluten Free waffles (which happen to be vegan) for 99 cents! You get six in a box. They’re a little on the small side, so I do three at a time. This is the cinnamon flavor, and I spread a little peanut butter on as well as drizzling with maple syrup. Then I cooked up some soy crumbles and sauteed them with onion and bell pepper, and seasoned with salt and pepper. The soy crumbles/veggie hash got a drizzling of maple syrup, too. Yum 😀

We had our family dinner at Denny’s on Sunday, and for once I got something other than the veggie burger. The Fit Fare Skillet is vegan if you get it without eggs. It includes potatoes, bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and spinach. I would’ve added avocado, but they were out (ask for it in place of the eggs so maybe they won’t charge extra). To make it extra carbolicious, I ordered a plain English muffin to go with it.

And finally, we broke open the chocolate orange I bought from Trader Joe’s a month ago. I used to get one of these every year for Christmas when I was a kid, but it was always made with milk chocolate. This one from Trader Joe’s is dark chocolate, and it is wonderful. You get five wedges in one serving, but we were careful not to eat more than two since we’re trying to be good in the new year.